: Mercedes Antoinette has been a lover of the arts for as long as she could remember. Writing poetry, music and short stories have always been a form of relief for her, but her true love comes with modeling.
Mercedes started out as an eight year old walking the runway for various hairshows. With age and experience she perfected her craft and continued with runway and print.
She had been featured in several publications including Conversation Piece and Hardbody Magazine. She's also been casted in several short films and documentaries including "What Goes Around..." directed by Rod Pitts and "100 Lives" directed by Darius Wallace.
"What Goes Around Trailer"
Mercedes has recently taken her love for arts into jewelry design. You can find her jewelry line on Facebook at Exotic Xpressions.
Among African Americans there seems to be no middle ground concerning Tyler Perry. Overwhelmingly, his work is either detested or revered. Forbes recently revealed him to be Hollywood’s highest earner last year, raking in 130 million bucks, sparking further debate within the Black community about the impact of TP’s films. Weighing in on Perry’s financial achievement on CNN’s Newsroom is writer/cultural critic Touré who considers the mogul to be one of the worst – “if not the worst” director in Ho-Town. He continues, “He’s willfully ignorant of the craft, and I can think of no aspect of the filmmaking craft that he excels at, certainly not acting or writing or cinematography or directing or set design.”
Touré’s critique extends far behind the film phenom’s cinematic expertise. He likened the overall message conveyed by Perry’s films to
“cinematic malt liquor for the masses,” or in other words, “If [Perry] was making chairs they would fall apart. If he were making food, it would make you throw up.”
Basically, what sickens the cultural critic about the whole Tyler Perry ‘brand’ is what he perceives as a celebration of “a certain victimhood and telling Black women that it’s okay to feel like a victim and to wallow in the pain of your life.” Objectively speaking, however, Touré admitted, “Black Southern women do not see themselves at all in Hollywood fare, so when he’s serving them movies where they appear to be in situations that are naturalistic and recognizable to them and definitely have that Christian message, I definitely understand why my grandmother, my mother and my aunts love this stuff.”
Which is why, despite what Touré, and other like-minded individuals (i.e. Spike Lee) declare, TP Studios keep crankin’ ‘em out. With 3 movies and a TV series already in the works, Tyler Perry’s 13th feature film, The Marriage Counselor, will begin production on October 25th. Malt liquor for the masses or food for thought, Tyler Perry’s moving full steam ahead – and all the way to the bank.
"There’s no way to slow somebody when they’re speeding down a path of destruction."
Kid Cudi has done some major house cleaning when it comes to his life and career! After a video was released of him stumbling out of a club drunk last year, he disappeared briefly afterward to get himself and his business in order. He recently sat down with Complex magazine before his overseas tour to talk about his darkest days during his battle with detox and sobriety as well as his decision to manage himself. He also touched on the stress of creating music without the influence of marijuana, attempting to not fail at love with his ride-or-die chick, his future in acting and how kicking it with Kanye was therapy for him. Check out a few excerpts:
On Spending Time With Kanye in New York:
I was at another place, another dark place. Me and my girl had broken up. I wasn’t fully healed yet. And being around Kanye and music was my escape. He’s a sober guy, he has a drink every once in a while, but seeing how he throws himself into the studio when he’s stressing about something, I totally admire that. Being around that was therapy for me.
On Getting Back With His Girl:
Yeah, we’re solid. I’m just trying to figure out love. I never was really good a it, but when you have someone who loves you so much and can take your good and your bad, and work with you and help you grow—that’s priceless. To have a ride-or-die woman, for somebody that’s in the position I’m in, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager
On Why He Disappeared After He Released His Last Album:
I wanted to clear my head, besides detox. I had to look at the root of the whole problem, and that was work and the business. I wasn’t trying to hear it from nobody. I’m not even going to attack the people in my life that didn’t step in and try to stop it, ’cause I was just so bullheaded. There’s no way to slow somebody when they’re speeding down a path of destruction.
I thought I was dealing with it in the proper way. I was in the moment. And when you’re that young, with that opportunity, all that money, and all that respect and power, sometimes you run with it. ’Cause I was like, “Man, you don’t know if this shit’s gon’ be here tomorrow.”
On Quitting Weed & Controlling His Liquor
Like, party a bit? It was easy for me to quit smoking weed because I stopped liking the way it made me feel. I didn’t like being one foot in, one foot out of reality. I could be blitzed out of my skull and somebody might be plotting to snuff me in the club. I can still sip my whiskey but I control my intake of liquor. I just don’t like the way it makes me feel [to be out-of-control drunk]. Especially in this business where you’ve got to watch the snakes in the grass. I could be blitzed out of my skull and somebody might be plotting to snuff me in the club. I really like being more alert.
I go out every once in a while. Not as much as I used to. Particularly in L.A., it’s tough because of the paparazzi. Even though it’s not going to happen, they’re waiting to see me f*cking stumble out of a club again.
Read more on Kid Cudi and his squashed beef with Wale, where he sees himself 2 years down the line and more on his personal transformation over at Complex.com.
Jay-Z’s verse on No Church In the Wild is one of the most interesting on Watch the Throne as it combines religion, spirituality, and philosophy. I tried to unpack most of what I heard but I’m sure there’s things I’m missing. It’s a deep verse. (Again, my point system is based on amateur boxing with 2 points for great lines, 1 point for good lines and 0 for anything else. But in this verse there's no 0s.)
No Church In the Wild
*In Case You Missed It.
Tears on the mauseoleum floor
Blood stains the coliseum doors
[2 points for the first line and 2 points for the second—These are great, brief images, like complex snapshots made by words—those sorts of photos that seem to suggest a scene. These give us moments of power asserting itself on weakness. In some grand, giant building, a mauseoleum, someone has been made to cry. On the door of the grand, giant stadium someone’s blood has been spilled. (Possibly many someones.) In societally-massive places someone has hurt someone else and left the mark of it behind. Thus Jay-Z slides into the song as a detached narrator, passing no judgment on these scenes, like a director starting the film with still images that tell so much but leave many questions, too. Also, really nice poetic work here rhyming a pair of four-syllable-then-one-syllable words.]
Lies on the lips of a priest
Thanksgiving disguised as a feast
[2, 2—In the song’s first two lines, the images were literal but in these two lines the images have turned figurative. But still we have power asserting itself on weakness. Priests were once among the most powerful men in society—a time evoked by words like mauseoleum and coliseum. This lying priest is hurting the people who believe him absolutely just as the person (or people) who cried and bled in the previous lines were hurt. Also, this figurative image becomes more literal because the previous two lines were literal so he’s accustomed you to see images from the words so that when you get a figurative line you see that, too. So I visualize the lies—these malicious words sitting on his lips like diseased spittle, about to fly out to the people’s ears. The following line (about Thanksgiving) concludes the series of images with a celebratory moment that’s really a Trojan horse allowing the powerful to take advantage of the weak. Interestingly, the first three lines suggest old Europe— mauseoleum, coliseum, a place where Priests had hegemony—while the fourth line, the line about Thanksgiving, clearly evokes early America, though perhaps at the beginning of America they were still more European than American. Perhaps.]
Rollin’ in the Rolls-Royce Corniche
[2—All these lines are getting 2’s because of the overall story they’re telling and how well they fit together to build something that’s greater than the sum of the parts. Is this particular line great in a vacuum? Maybe not, though the alliteration is nice, but what makes it great is how it fits with the lines we’ve been given before. Jay’s been a detached narrator so far, giving himself no place in the story and not even passing judgment on the scenes he’s painting. Here he enters the story in style. In style linguistically—there’s an elegant subtlety to how he inserts himself into the narrative. He doesn’t say “I” but you know it’s him rolling in that expensive car. It’s almost like he’s driven into the story casually—because you wouldn’t drive that car fast. Keep this image in mind—Jay driving. He’s not just bragging. He’s placing himself as a character within the narrative. This is the moment where the verse becomes something of a scene.]
Only the doctors got this, I’m hidin’ from police
[2—Jay’s been talking about the interaction of power and weakness but here he locates himself within that conversation but he makes it unclear who’s got the power. He’s got a car that only doctors can afford, that only the rich can get, so it’s a signifier of his power but he’s gotta watch out for the police because they’re the power and they’ll stop him for Driving [An Expensive Ride] While Black. So Jay’s both powerful and not so powerful at the same time.]
Cocaine seats
All white like I got the whole thing bleached
[2, 2—More great, precise imagery. The whole car is cocaine white, the crispest, sharpest white available. This continues the tangible, writerly detail he’s been giving us the whole song. And the bleaching is not just a reference to the car itself. “The whole thing” refers to Jay’s business and persona—he was in the streets and now he’s bleached his life. He’s clean. He’s a business, man. “Cocaine seats” puts the ghost of his old life into the air but we know there’s nothing that cops can stop him for. Except maybe Driving While Black.]
Drug dealer chic
I’m wonderin’ if a thug’s prayers reach
[1, 2—Drug dealer chic is what Jay’s style is all about but it’s not a line that’s blowing me away. But it links nicely with his allusions toward his coke-dealing days and his next line (I’m wonderin’ if a thug’s prayers reach) which goes back to the interplay between power and weakness and who’s truly powerful as well as launching us toward the religiosity alluded to in the song’s title and intro and discussed in depth in the next few lines. But it’s a great line in and of itself, a great philosophical question—do the prayers of an immoral criminal reach God’s ears? Does God take care of everyone or just those who are good? Keep in mind “I’m wonderin…” which may seem like a throwaway but isn’t—it’s there that the verse starts a trip into his mind. I see him cruising in his Corniche, pontificating, gettin all philosophical and shit.]
Is Pious pious cause God loves pious?
[2—This is an awesome line that deserves much more than 2. Jay’s taken the spiritual/philosophical question of the previous line to another level and dropped a deep and legendary philosophical question. This is the legendary Euthyphro dilemma in which Socrates asks “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” We’re talking Socrates now? We’re asking what is the source of what is Godly? Why are the things considered morally good considered that? How do we know what is Godly and why? In a polytheistic society, like the one Socrates lived in, this question was all the more complex: what if one god favors one behavior and another does not? This line, right after wondering if a criminal’s prayers would be answered by God, makes for a really deep pair of thoughts. In quick succession Jay’s wondered about the relationship to God of society’s moral lowest and highest. This, in a pop song?]
Socrates asks, “Whose bias do y’all seek?”
[2—Before he quoted Socrates, now he name checks him and gives us his own summary of what Socrates is saying. Whose opinion matters to you? Are you following reason or faith? This is a pop song?]
All for Plato, screech
[2—Now he’s naming Plato, Socrates’s homie. I can’t believe this sort of philosophical discussion and historical namechecking is flowing so smoothly in a pop song. But the 2 points here really goes to the seemingly insignificant “screech” which is a pivot point in the verse. It’s an onomatopoeia, of course, but it works two ways stopping two things. First it stops this line of deep philosophical discussion he’s been giving us. This is the pivot where he turns sharply and moves away from philosophy and into more classic Jay talk. But also, go back to the image of him in the car, when the Rolls enters the narrative. Jay describes the Rolls that he’s sitting in then says “I’m wonderin…” and the lines after that are a continuously deepening series of philosophical thoughts moving from a thug’s relationship with God to Socrates’s pondering the nature of piety. All these are thoughts he’s having as he’s rolling in the Rolls. It’s as if the voice of his inner monologue had been going in a voiceover. And then the car—the vehicle in which he’s having these thoughts—comes to a hard stop, a screech, and he snaps back to real life.]
I’m out here ballin’, I know ya’ll hear my sneaks
[2—Here’s a nice little double-entendre. He’s out in the streets ballin—either living large and/or playing basketball. If the latter you’d hear his sneaks, because while playing sneakers naturally squeak and even, maybe, screech. Or, if you’re ballin as hard as he is, your sneakers would be immediately noticed, or perhaps so stylistically loud they’re heard.]
Jesus was a carpenter, Yeezy laid beats
[2—Clever, clever: One third of the real Holy Trinity built literal things while Kanye builds music piece by piece, similar to carpentry. If that were the whole idea then this would maybe get a 1 but it’s followed up by…]
Hova flow the Holy Ghost, get the hell up out your seats.
[2—Damn the payoff is large: Jay-Hova is another third of the Holy Trinity he’s describing (along with Yeezy). He’s always talked about his writing and rhyming ability is beyond conscious, it’s God-given—as if it’s God flowing through him, he says. There’s something mysterious about the Holy Ghost and something mysterious about his ability to him, so it makes sense for him to link himself to that in this analogy. Who’s the God in this triumvirate? Is it God or is it the audience? Also, knowing Jay, he didn’t place the word hell there lightly, at the end of a verse filled with references to religion, spirituality and philosophy.]
Preach
[1—This is interesting. It’s a cool way to finish a verse that’s had so much religion and philosophy in it and it nicely lands the verse in a single word that locates us within the Black church experience as “Preach!” is a normal part of the call and response in a Black church. But “preach” is never an exclamation you use to praise something you have said. It’s always to praise something someone else has said. So for Jay to say this about his own verse is a bit weird. I wonder if it might’ve been better for Kanye to jump in here and say this word, speaking about Jay’s verse and then for Jay to say it about Kanye’s verse at the end of the song.]
Toure' and Jay-Z
Working on a Rolling Stone cover story a long time ago.
